


Counting Dollars

by ipoiledi



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M, Post Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:28:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ipoiledi/pseuds/ipoiledi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Of course I want to be a starving artist,” Justin whispers, undeterred. “It’s every young queer’s dream. Haven’t you ever seen Rent?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Dollars

**Author's Note:**

> the title is, shamefully, lyrics from a onerepublic song.

“It’s like some kind of freak accident,” Justin muses.

Tonight they ordered Chinese with the money they don’t have and smoked half of Brian’s chronic waiting for it. An hour ago Brian had all these grand plans about licking sweet and sour sauce out of Justin’s mouth, but that sounds like a lot of effort right now from where he is, laying on the floor perpendicular to Justin, his head propped on Justin’s stomach. 

Brian realizes that he’s lost the line of conversation. “What?” he asks. 

“I said,” repeats Justin patiently, “It’s like some kind of freak accident. Like, what are the chances that out of all the times we fucked in the office, they’d catch us fucking in our own home instead?” 

Brian is startled into a laugh. “Holy shit, you’re right,” he says. “We fucked in the copy room—" 

“The conference room.” 

“My office.”

“Vance’s office.”

Brian turns his head to bury his nose in the fabric of Justin’s soft t-shirt. “The men’s room at lunch.”

“ _Four times_ ,” Justin whispers salaciously, and Brian can actually _hear_ the waggle he does with his eyebrows when he says it. He chuckles into Justin’s ribs. 

Their laughter abates after a second. Brian, his nose still pressed to Justin’s belly, blinks up at him. He sees, from his weird angle, Justin’s chin, mouth, and nose, in that order. Justin’s mouth looks really, criminally soft from here. Brian thinks they should move this party to the bed. Or the couch. Couch is closer. He turns a little, squinting, to locate the couch.

Fuck.

Brian drops his head back onto Justin, groaning. 

“What?” Justin asks. 

Brian doesn’t answer, electing instead to push Justin’s shirt up far enough so he can press his cheek to Justin’s bare stomach. Then he reaches up and pulls Justin’s shirt over his head, effectively cocooned in a warm, Justin-smelling place of whiteness. Justin absently puts his hands over Brian's cotton-covered head. Brian wiggles his toes against the chilly wood flooring.  

“Brian,” Justin says after a while.

Brian hmmphs. He's thinking about the fact that the next thing to go is going to be his computer. 

“ _Can you hear the baby’s heartbeat?”_ Justin whispers. 

Brian’s head snaps up. He gets a little tangled in the t-shirt and when he finally manages to bat it away, Justin is wheezing with laughter, covering his face with his hands. 

“Oh my fucking God,” he giggles, “ _Your face,_ Brian, oh my God.” 

“You fucking weirdo,” Brian says. He digs a finger into Justin’s side and Justin snorts, slapping his hand away. “You _total fucking weirdo,_ ” Brian repeats, intent on getting this point across sufficiently. 

“Did you forget for a second that I’m not a woman? I think you forgot that I have no ovaries. I think you literally — ah!” Justin yelps, as Brian tickles him again, “— _Literally_ forgot that you couldn’t knock me up, oh my fucking Christ.” 

Brian deduces quickly that the only way to diffuse this situation is to shut Justin up, so he accordingly twists upward and presses their mouths together. Justin is still chuckling into the kiss a little, but after a second he quiets, sucking Brian’s bottom lip into his mouth, squeezing it gently between his teeth.  

Brian likes kissing Justin when he’s high. Brian likes kissing Justin all the time, but kissing Justin when he’s stoned is a unique experience. It’s different from when he’s on E. He gets drowsy-warm and smiles too much. He smells sweeter and darker than usual in that place behind his ear. His skin feels impossibly softer under Brian’s hands. That is probably actually the weed affecting Brian, he realizes, but he doesn’t care; it’s true anyway. 

“We should fuck,” Justin mumbles, _“right here.”_

Brian pulls back. “Um, Sunshine,” he says, raising an eyebrow, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a distinct lack of _couch_ —“  

“See, but that’s all part of the plan,” says Justin, self-assured in a way only the truly, honestly blazed can be. “Remember that one time you banged your head on the leg of it? And whenever you start doing handstands, you’d always knock it over and scuff up the floors—“

“That was _once.“_

Justin looks at him, unimpressed. “Um, okay,” he says, openly laughing at him. Brian scowls. 

“You could never eat on it, or drink coffee near it, because it was white,” Justin continues, undeterred. “So let’s show that fucking couch, and fuck right where it used to be.”

Brian has to admit that, at least right now, Justin’s logic is sounding pretty solid. However . . . “No way,” Brian says. “For one, there aren’t any condoms in here. They were all in the couch, and the couch is gone. Second,” Okay, Kinney,  _nonchalant_ , “I’m not letting you fuck me on the floor, it’ll be cold as balls against my balls.”

Brian looks up at Justin in order to gauge a reaction and decide how to proceed.

Justin’s eyes are wide for a second, but then he abruptly squints. “Are you only offering because you think you’ll knock me up? Because, Brian. That’s _really_ not possible.”

“You,” Brian says, _“little shithead.”_

Justin starts laughing again, mashing his face against Brian’s in some misguided attempt at a kiss. “Well,” he mumbles, “Maybe if you tried _hard_ enough, and for a _long_ enough period of time…”  
  
“Can we not talk about pregnancy and ovaries when I’m trying to get you horny?” Brian asks, put-upon. 

“I think it’s the cervix, actually,” Justin corrects. “No, wait, it’s the uterus. That’s where the baby goes.” 

“When in your life will you _ever_ need to know that?” Brian wonders. 

Justin shrugs. “What if I’m on Jeopardy one day and I win us millions?” 

Brian makes his eyes go wide. “What if you’re _actually_ a woman, and I leave you for someone _actually_ willing to fuck instead of talk about reproductive organs?” 

“You wouldn’t care if I was a woman if I won us millions.” The second after he says it, Brian feels Justin’s body tense up under his. “Shit, Brian—“ 

“It’s true,” says Brian; he had considered getting angry, and then decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Besides, he doesn’t like being angry with Justin. It seems like such a waste of time when they could be touching instead. 

He pulls himself up a little further so their noses brush. Looks Justin right in the eye. He thinks of Ian,  _Ethan,_ fuck him; of how miserable he knows Justin was in that shitty off-campus apartment. Brian tips their foreheads together and kisses the bridge of Justin's nose. His voice comes out laced with bitter vitriol. "No one wants to be a starving artist, Sunshine. Not even you."

“Of course I want to be a starving artist,” Justin whispers, undeterred. “It’s every young queer’s dream. Haven’t you ever seen _Rent?”_

Brian huffs, shaking his head. “If you say so.” 

“I do,” says Justin with an abrupt intensity. “I _do_ ,” he repeats, and kisses Brian again, long and slow, tasting, no fucking kidding, like sweet and sour sauce. Finally he pulls his head back and rolls over on top of Brian. His weight is solid and Brian, unable to help himself, runs his palms up under Justin’s tee, smoothing across the skin of his sides. In a strange moment of role reversal, Justin tangles his fingers up in Brian’s hair. 

Justin rests his ear to Brian’s chest. He wiggles a little, nudging a leg between Brian’s. It’s not cuddling, Brian rationalizes. It’s just some really extended, relaxed foreplay. 

“I’m still going to fuck you,” Justin mumbles. “Don’t think your ass is safe yet. I’m just resting. Hey, do you miss Naked Guy?” 

Brian turns his head to see the blank wall Justin is looking at. 

“His dick was too small,” Brian decides after a moment. “So, no.”  

“Hmm,” says Justin, and he leans back down to kiss Brian again. “Well, lucky for you, mine isn’t. Fuck Naked Guy. And fuck that ugly old couch. It was out of season, anyway.” 

Brian looks at Justin for a minute and then laughs. “Up,” he decides.

“Yeah,” agrees Justin, who digs a knee dangerously close to Brian’s groin in the process of standing and then proceeds to knock over two empty lo mein cartons and step on the remains of a fortune cookie. Brian pulls himself to his feet too. Justin goes to pick up the cartons, but Brian grabs him by the hips and pushes him to the bed. 

“Tomorrow,” Brian advises.

On the bed, Justin pulls his shirt up over his head and then unbuttons Brian’s with patient, molasses-slow hands. He kisses Brian’s throat, licks sweat from the hollow of his neck, and moans sweetly when Brian palms at his cock through his underwear. Brian, feeling mellow, stretches himself out underneath Justin’s body and relishes at the thought of how thick and big Justin feels, how good he’ll feel inside. He takes a second and holds onto that thought. He doesn’t let himself get weird about it. 

Brian reaches over and fishes around in what Justin refers to as the bedside party favor bowl until he comes up with lube and a condom. Meanwhile Justin unbuttons Brian’s jeans and yanks them down around his ankles, pausing to get his own off too. Their no underwear rule, Brian reflects, is pretty ingenious. It’s way cooler than their home by three rule, which only really bothers Brian when Justin gets home at 2:58, anyway. 

Justin stops for a second, kneeling on the bed. The orange light throws the angles of him into sharp relief. The effect is dulled only by the warm hue and the darkness in his eyes. Brian looks at Justin, at the shadows dipping on his chest; at his cock, jutting out and hard; at the lean muscles in his thighs. At his hair and the turn of his nose. He blinks and thinks the world is slowing down.

Brian reaches up a hand, asking silently for Justin to come closer. 

“You drive me crazy,” says Justin, as he crawls up Brian’s body. 

“I thought mind-reading was Rage’s thing,” Brian mumbles, feeling a little confused. He presses the condom and the lube against Justin’s chest, their fingers overlapping when Justin takes them. Justin stops and waits. This is usually the point where Brian rolls over, buries his face in a pillow, and grabs onto the headboard. Brian sees the patient look on Justin’s face and instead shifts, settling Justin between his spread legs.

Justin, thankfully, doesn’t say a fucking word. Instead he buries his nose in Brian’s chest for a second. And then he starts moving again, swirling his tongue into Brian’s belly button, nosing at his cock, nuzzling at his balls. And then lower still, and Brian accordingly hooks his knees up onto Justin’s shoulders, lets Justin spread him wide. 

Justin starts rimming him, and Brian’s ability to process higher thought skitters to a halt.  

Justin opens him up patiently but not too gently, moaning when Brian reaches down and tugs his hair, probably a little too hard; stroking at the tense muscles of Brian’s inner thighs after one finger and then two. Brian sinks his teeth into his bottom lip and coasts on the remaining taste of Justin he finds in his own mouth. Justin sucks Brian’s cock between his lips and pushes deeper, grinding right up on to Brian’s prostate. Brian’s back arches clean off the bed and he can taste his orgasm in the tightening at the back of his throat and in his abdomen. Brian moans, open-mouthed, and throws an arm over his hot face while Justin starts sliding up his body again. Brian buries his eyes in the crook of his own elbow.

“Like this?” asks Justin, nipping at Brian’s ear. 

“Yeah,” agrees Brian hoarsely. Justin leans back to put on the condom, and last minute Brian decides he wants to do it himself. He takes the latex from Justin and sits up enough to slide it on. Sometimes he forgets how much he likes Justin’s cock, which is stupid as fuck; he’s a gay man, of course he likes cock. But he gets distracted by Justin’s . . . everything else. Sometimes. 

Brian pulls Justin a little closer and, without warning, takes Justin’s cock into his mouth. He’s a little angry that he didn’t have the foresight to do this _before_ he put on the condom, because Justin tastes great, and this lube really doesn’t. But Justin is gasping, surprised, and that’s good enough for Brian.

“Jesus, Brian,” Justin finally says, batting at Brian’s head. “Brian, I’m not gonna last.” 

Brian props his chin on Justin’s stomach and looks up at him. Justin’s cock slides against Brian’s throat, along his stubble. 

“Then come on,” says Brian. 

It doesn’t hurt as bad as Brian remembers, but that must be a combination of the weed and the fact that Justin is murmuring filthy, filthy nonsense at him as he slides in. He likes the pain, anyway. He likes the edge; it’s a part of it. It wouldn’t be as real without it. Brian doesn’t want to grasp onto Justin’s biceps but he ends up doing it anyway. He squeezes his eyes shut and his head falls back without his permission, and Justin starts to move. 

“Brian _,”_ Justin moans. “God, _Brian_.” 

A noise comes out of Brian’s throat that he wasn’t expecting, something breathless and hitching.   Justin is a stellar top, Brian is proud to say — he taught him, after all, everything he knows — and whenever Justin fucks him, confident and unyielding and with astoundingly perfect aim, Brian wonders why they don’t do this more often. He wonders why he has hang-ups about it at all. It’s a waste of fucking time to be ashamed of liking anything that feels this good. 

“Your cock,” gasps Brian, “is so much bigger than Naked Guy’s.” 

Justin bursts into giggles and has to stop for a second to bury his face in Brian’s neck. Brian laughs too, head tilted back into the pillow. And then Justin starts to move again, and Brian’s laugh turns into a moan that tears itself from deep in his throat. It’s true; Justin’s cock is huge. They measured once, and he’s got a third of an inch on Brian in girth. Brian is pretty sure he’s going to be feeling that third of an inch for a week. 

“You’re so good,” Justin murmurs nonsensically. He stops thrusting and starts grinding, right up against Brian’s prostate, too close for comfort. Brian feels like he’s about to crawl out of his own skin in the best way possible. “You’re so, so good,” Justin repeats, raking his teeth down Brian’s neck. Brian wants to come, he wants to _right now_ , with Justin stretching him wide open, and he reaches for his dick — but Justin bats his hand away and replaces it with his own. He puts his palm to the underside of Brian’s cock, not stroking, just letting the rock of their bodies help rub him off. 

Brian feels his toes curling and he fists a hand in Justin’s hair. Weed does this to them, gets them crazy for each other and then doesn’t let them get off. Who needs cock rings, Brian thinks, when you have THC? 

The constant, rhythmic rub of Justin’s cock is sending electric shocks up and down Brian’s spine. He can’t help anymore the way his back is arching. Justin licks his throat and Brian’s cock jerks under his palm, spilling precome. 

“So good,” repeats Justin again. “My good, good man. _Brian_ …” 

Brian wants it harder but he wants it slower. He wants to get off now, right now, but he wants Justin to keep fucking him until they both pass out from sheer, absolute exhaustion. Justin pauses to kiss him wet and hard and sweet, and when he starts to move again Brian feels himself start to come. It’s one of those orgasms that starts behind his balls and spreads like a wildfire, stinging his eyes and lasting for an entire ice age before abruptly melting every single muscle in his body. He’d have woken up the neighbors if they had any. It subsides after a millennia. His heartbeat is still thundering with deafening intensity in his head when he remembers his own name. 

“Come on, come on, come on,” Brian hears himself say, and Justin, who is watching him, lips parted, comes too. Brian watches his face, the crease of his eyebrows, the curl of his mouth until his teeth are bared, the violent way he pushes in and in and _in_. A muscle in his thigh spasms violently against Brian’s left leg. Best, he can feel Justin spilling inside him, filling up the condom, his cock still jerking as he finishes. 

“Christ, Justin,” Brian says, his brain to mouth filter completely destroyed. Justin collapses, burying his head in Brian’s neck. 

“Sticky,” Justin mumbles after a second, and for some reason, that word makes Brian’s dick twitch weakly against his stomach. He’s right; the sheets are a mess of Brian’s sweat and Brian’s come. Justin pulls out carefully, kissing the wince away from the corner of Brian’s mouth. He ties the condom off and aims vaguely for the bin. Then he reaches up and flicks off the orange light. Brian reaches up and grabs Justin. 

Sick of smelling himself, Brian flips them over to Justin’s side of the bed, slides down Justin’s body, and buries his nose in Justin’s belly. He falls asleep listening to the weird little gurgling sounds of Justin’s stomach and the wheezing noise of his own deviated septum. 

—

 When Brian wakes up the next morning it’s because a police siren is wailing out on the street. He squints angrily at the alarm clock, which is face-down on the nightstand and blessedly turned off. In retrospect, that makes sense; it’s not like he has any real reason to get out of bed today anyway. 

He has vague memories of Justin getting up at some ungodly hour and making noise about picking up some groceries because all they have in the fridge is kale and beer and poppers. Not exactly a growing boy’s breakfast. It’s not like they can really afford to go out and eat for every meal now, either. 

Brian groans, feeling a sweet sting in his muscles, and buries his face back into the pillow. Dredging up from somewhere deep inside of himself the will to live, he raises his head and blinks. Beside the alarm clock is his cigarette case. Brian figures he’s making up for the lack of nicotine following a good fuck last night by getting his fix now. He fishes for a light in the party bowl, digs up a mostly empty matchbox, and lights up before padding down the steps and into the kitchen.

Justin cleaned up the takeout at some point. He’s also already made coffee and left half of it percolating for Brian. Brian dumps two thirds of the sugar bowl straight into the pot, takes a drag, and turns to face his empty living room. Then he blinks. 

There’s something on Naked Guy’s wall. 

Squinting, Brian takes a bracing gulp of coffee and wonders if he’s still baked. He’s not, though. There’s definitely a piece of paper there.

Walking closer, Brian finally sees what it is. A big 11 x 17 sheet is taped to the wall. On it is a truly hideous stick figure drawing of Naked Guy sitting and pensively staring into the distance. He is sporting, of course, a massive, fantastically detailed, perfectly erect cock. 

Brian laughs so hard he ends up having to sit his sore ass down on the floor, right where the couch used to be. He collects himself for a second, but then he chokes on his coffee and starts laughing again. 


End file.
